He scarcely noticed the blue and cloudless sky, nor the white stone of the church when he entered. He didn’t take note of the decorated chapel, of the sheaves of tulips that adorned the pedestals, or the petals that had been strewn down the aisles. It was the wedding of the Season, but he barely realized that his guests were streaming in. Instead, he focused on the doors where his bride would enter.
He almost couldn’t quite believe she would be here.
When the organ began playing, and the crowd rose, his whole heart swelled. And when she entered... Ah, sweet Ginny. She wore a gold gown of watered silk, swept up in complicated bows and flounces. She carried a simple bouquet of yellow tulips. And she came down the aisle, slowly, to stand before him.
He could scarcely breathe.
And then, she gave him a smile—a long, slow, mischievous smile that brought him back from the heavens opening up to angelic choirs. By the time the vicar made his way through the meandering ceremony, he’d remembered again and again why he most loved her—why nobody else had ever been able to complete him as she had.
And so when he spoke his vows, he didn’t just blurt them out. Just because the words were part of a sacred ceremony didn’t mean that they couldn’t be part of a game, too.
“With this ring,” he said, as solemnly as he could manage. “I thee wed.”
The emphasis was intentional. He hadn’t consulted her on the ring. He hadn’t even so much as made mention of it, and she’d simply trusted the details to him.
She should have known better. He pulled out a ring with an entirely too-realistic beetle on it, large, ostentatious stones set like bulbous orbs in its head. Her eyes widened.
To give her credit, she didn’t flinch. She didn’t even pull her hand away. She just met his eyes in a silent dare: If you put that thing on me, so help me, I will…
Just because he’d put her first didn’t mean he couldn’t tease her a little. He’d practiced hiding the real ring in the palm of his hand for days. He slipped the weight onto her finger, and when she took her hand from his, she found he’d placed a single, perfect gold band on it instead.
Her only response was a faint, relieved huff and a twitch of her lip.
With one raise of her eyebrow, she let him know that he’d won this round—but that she’d be back for more. A lifetime of more.
Simon could hardly wait.
USUALLY I WRITE about real places. But there are no such places as Chester-on-Woolsey, Anniston, Castingham, or Chapton. There is no Prince’s Canal, either. I made up locations because the British railway timeline didn’t fit my fictional needs. I either had to change history or change geography; I chose the latter.
But this story is still based on historical events. The 1840s in England saw fortunes being made (and lost) on railways, and there was a lot of animosity between competing methods of transportation. Canal owners and railway owners clashed, but there was also a good bit of railway-on-railway hostility. (“Railway-on-railway” sounds so dirty.) In 1846, the railway bubble collapsed. Simon’s decision to diversify came at precisely the right time. But for those who might worry about it, in my version of Britain, Simon and Ginny’s company survived the collapse of the bubble—as did many of the major arterial connections.
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Courtney Milan is a New York Times and a USA Today bestselling author. Her books have received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist. She's twice been a RITA? finalist, and her second book was chosen as a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010. Courtney lives in the Rocky Mountains with her husband, a medium-sized dog, and an attack cat. She’s working on a garden, an older house, and her next book.
More about Courtney’s other works, and an excerpt from her latest release, can be found at the back of this book. Click here for a shortcut.
For my mother and father.
I love you.
I am deeply grateful to my family, Bill, Shannon, Erik, and Sarah for their love and support. I’d also like to say a great big thank you to the outstanding editorial team who worked on my story, Janine Allen and Martha Trachtenberg. Leigh, Courtney, and Tessa, as always, I count myself lucky to be your friend.
Saturday Evening
ANNA KINCAID WAS the turned-down pagecorner in the book of Charlie Drexler’s life. With a placeholder like Anna, he had to question his decision to skip ahead in the first place. But firefly nights of long ago and not-so-forgotten memories aside, the sight of Anna picking her way across the summer grass, precariously balancing a tray of, yes sir, those were deviled eggs all right, would still have knocked the wind out of him.